We Frosts have a relatively wide circle of friends and aquaintances. With the passage of time many of them have become divorced or have separated. For years we have ignored a common assumption: that is, that we are not supposed to remain friends with both parties to the breakup. Ridiculous as it seems, when you’ve been friendly with, let us say, both the husband and the wife, after a divorce you can be friends with only one of them.
It isn’t true, you know. We can remain friends with both of them as individuals as well as friends with them as a couple. Our principal guideline in behaving thus is this : Never discuss one party’s doings with the other party. Genuine friends are not so thick on the ground that we can afford to lose either or both.
As well as couples, covens and groups break up. Here, deplorably, we see exactly the same phenomenon. Instead of separating and then still working rationally together for the common good of the Movement (the Community) toward shared goals, especially on mundane matters, or simply going their own way, the two groups assume that now they have to hate each other–to such a degree that third parties outside, who now have friends in both the groups, are hated and reviled because we are so stupid that we don’t see the terrible things the “other” fraction of the former group is doing. It doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out that this behavior pattern isn’t doing any good for the community or for our mutual spirituality. Must we assume that pagans are incapable of rational behavior?
Such either/or sulking and pouting behavior occurs on the playground of second-grade seven-year-olds. It is unworthy of self-styled “adults”. Please just get over yourselves, you individuals who claim to exhibit adult behavior. Do something useful with your lives instead of staying crouched panting for the death of your new enemies. Don’t you still share some inkling of the feeling that almost any pagan is better company than almost any (say) Christian?
Blessed be those who can demonstrate their maturity. Gavin and Yvonne
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